For millions of Indians, roti, dal and chawal equals home. More than dietary staples, they are rituals of belonging, cultural inheritance, and emotional safety. To suggest that this food may not be as healthy as we believe is to risk offending more than half of the country, especially our moms and dads. And yet, it’s a necessary discomfort. Because in the folds of these familiar meals, there lies an uncomfortable truth: the typical Indian diet, especially for vegetarians, is woefully deficient in protein.

Despite some improvement in diets over the last decade, India is a country where a majority of people don’t meet daily protein requirements. According to a recent study, only around 20% of the rural India, including many high-income households consume adequate protein across all age groups. What’s even more startling is that much of our protein comes from poor-quality sources like cereals — rice and wheat, which dominate our food plates not because of their nutritional value but because they are cheap, filling, and subsidized. In Gujarat, for instance, cereals account for nearly half of all protein intake across both rural and urban groups, even though they offer a fraction of what the body actually needs. We’ve normalized a system where comfort has taken precedence over adequacy, and taste has crowded out critical thinking

And the blind spot isn’t just nutritional. It’s cultural. The reverence we hold for vegetarianism in India is rooted not in health science but in hierarchies of caste, purity, and spiritual superiority. Upper-caste Hindus, especially Brahmins, have long considered abstention from meat a marker of moral and ritual cleanliness. Over time, this has transformed into a normative ideal, one that trickled into public policy, school curricula, and food regulation. In a country where caste remains one of the most enduring axes of identity, vegetarianism was never just a personal choice. It was a social code that insidiously cast meat-eating communities — often Dalit, Adivasi, or Muslim- as impure.

This is what makes the conversation around protein so complicated. Because it's not just about nutritional science. Cultural pride, religious belief, historical discrimination, and access comes into play. When you praise pulses over poultry or defend dal over eggs, you’re not just making a dietary argument, you’re also wading into centuries of casteist food politics.

But here’s the kicker: the very communities most maligned by ultra-conservatives for their eating habits, like tribal groups, Dalits, and other marginalised castes, have traditionally consumed diets that are more protein-rich, diverse, and resilient than mainstream vegetarian fare. In states like Jharkhand, studies of the Santhal, Munda, and Sauria Paharia tribes show that indigenous diets made up of millets, wild greens, forest mushrooms, and local pulses offer significantly more protein, iron, and vitamins than the standard rice-roti-dal model. These ingredients are seasonal, region-specific, and sustainable. They grow on the margins of the market but at the heart of nutritional wisdom.

This is not to romanticise poverty or hardship, but to acknowledge that nutritional richness doesn’t always align with economic privilege. In fact, it often sits in direct tension with it. Dalit and tribal foods have long been looked down upon, dismissed as ‘unclean’ or ‘backward’, even though they may hold the very keys to solving India’s protein crisis. Meanwhile, vegetarianism, which is often celebrated as ethical and modern, can ironically become a form of nutritional elitism. Wealthier vegetarians can afford protein-dense foods like paneer, quinoa, tofu, or almond milk. Lower-income vegetarians? They're usually stuck with starches.

Non-vegetarian food, too, is becoming increasingly inaccessible for the poor. Eggs, one of the cheapest and most complete sources of protein, are still banned in midday meals in some states due to upper-caste lobbying. Fish and meat prices fluctuate wildly and are out of reach for many working-class families. Even soy — a protein-rich vegetarian staple, is treated with suspicion by those who are unfamiliar with how to cook or digest it. What we’re seeing is a deep entanglement of class and caste in our protein choices: what you eat is no longer just about what’s good for you, but also about what you can afford, what you’re permitted to cook, and what your neighbours won’t judge you for.

Still, even for those who have the means and choice, there’s an inertia at play. Comfort foods lull us into complacency. Dal chawal is warm, nostalgic, and filling. But the idea that comfort automatically equals health is a dangerous assumption. A plate of rice and dal might give you carbohydrates, some fiber, and a few grams of protein, but not nearly enough for an adult with even moderate physical activity. And when these meals are repeated daily, without variety or balance, they become nutritionally inadequate.

Which brings us to the central question: how do we rethink Indian food without discarding its cultural essence?

The answer lies not in reinventing our cuisine but in revisiting it. In going back to indigenous knowledge, local ingredients, traditional recipes that are still Indian and have been pushed out by urban homogenisation. Millets, once a staple across India, are slowly making a comeback, and with good reason. They are drought-resistant, affordable, and higher in protein than rice or wheat. Leafy greens like amaranth, bathua, and colocasia leaves, often foraged rather than bought, are packed with nutrients. Pulses like moth, kulith, and black gram offer a much broader amino acid profile when paired with the right grains. Even mushrooms, rich in protein and common in tribal diets, can be cultivated more widely.

We also need to push for policy reform. The Public Distribution System (PDS), which reaches millions, still focuses heavily on cereals. Including millets, pulses, or eggs in this scheme could radically change the nutritional landscape for the poor. School meal programs must be freed from caste politics and made more inclusive of meat, dairy, and protein-rich vegetarian options. And importantly, we need public campaigns that stop treating protein as a gym-bro buzzword and start contextualising it as a basic human requirement; especially for children, pregnant women, and informal workers.

At the same time, we must be cautious of the protein industrial complex — one that sells high-protein pasta, fortified bread, and almond-infused coffee to urban elites under the guise of health. These are not solutions; they are distractions, obsession even. We don’t need expensive supplements to fix our diets. We just need better diets.

What’s at stake here is not just physical health, but social equity. If we continue to pedestalize low-protein vegetarianism while stigmatizing or ignoring the more nutrient-dense diets of marginalised communities, we’re replicating the very hierarchies we claim to oppose. Food has always been a vehicle of power in India through what we eat, what we’re allowed to eat, and what we’re shamed for eating.

Insects, for example, are often looked down upon but across the Northeast, they’re a rich, sustainable source of protein that’s long been part of tribal diets. Across Assam, Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal and Meghalaya, grasshoppers, bamboo borers, stink bugs, weaver ants, termites and silk‑worm larvae are used to prepare dishes like red ant chutney or fried water bugs as staples.

Entomophagy remains both cultural tradition and nutritional safety net, with over 255 insect species recorded, and insects prized for being rich in protein, fats, minerals, even vitamin B12, while demanding minimal land, water or feed and emitting far less greenhouse gas when compared to livestock. Importantly, this form of protein access bridges caste and class: insects are harvested and consumed by marginalised communities, often year-round or during lean seasons, providing nutrition in moments when more expensive meat is simply not available.

For those who wish to avoid animal products altogether — whether for ethical, religious, or environmental reasons, mock meats made from soy, jackfruit, pulses, textured vegetable protein and plant-based alternatives are also beginning to offer viable, protein-rich options. Companies like Tata, GoodDot, Vezlay and Ahimsa Foods are launching tofu, tempeh, mock chicken and burgers that convincingly mimic meat for health‑ and eco‑conscious consumers. While price, taste, and cultural acceptance remain obstacles, especially outside urban elite circles, these trends offer alternative pathways to protein while at least somewhat addressing sustainability.

But none of this means abandoning the foods that we were raised on. Dal chawal doesn’t have to disappear from our plates; it just can’t be the whole plate anymore. Our culinary inheritance doesn’t need to be discarded, but recalibrated with ingredients that reflect not just where we come from, but what our bodies and societies need today. Protein-rich alternatives already exist across our culinary landscape, the real task is not to give up ‘Indian’ food, but to stop confusing nostalgia and familiarity with nutrition.

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